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The House on Mango Street/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby Moby is walking quickly down a sidewalk in a residential neighborhood. He is pulling Rita by the hand. RITA: That's so cool that you bought one of those tiny homes! I hope you like my housewarming gift… They jump from the sidewalk over a picket fence into a large grassy yard. In the center of the yard is a small house. There are tall trees in the yard. One tree has a tire swing. They walk through the yard to the house, which turns out to be a small toy. MOBY: Beep. He gestures toward the tiny house. Rita is catching her breath from their brisk walk. RITA: It's, uh, cute? Rita reads from a typed letter. RITA: Dear Rita and Moby, our teacher is a huge fan of "The House on Mango Street." What's so great about it? Some chapters are only one paragraph long! From, Mr. Cuttler's class. RITA: Sorry, guys. I'm with Mister Cuttler on this one. "Mango Street" is one of my absolute favorites. An animation shows a hardcover copy of "The House on Mango Street," by Sandra Cisneros. Colored lights radiate from the book. RITA: The novel is all about trying to figure out who you really are, which can be kind of hard when you're a teenager. MOBY: Beep. RITA: Yeah, I totally know how that feels. So does the author, Sandra Cisneros. An image shows Sandra Cisneros standing near the side of a house. RITA: She's Chicana, an American woman with family roots in Mexico. American and Mexican flags appear behind Cisneros. RITA: Her own childhood experiences formed the basis of "Mango Street." The narrator, Esperanza, is the oldest of four siblings. An animation shows a young girl who resembles Cisneros as a child. She is in the back seat of a car with two younger brothers and a younger sister. Their parents are in the car's front seat. The father is driving. The car is filled with furniture, and a mattress is tied to its roof. RITA: Her family doesn't have much money, and being Mexican-American is a central part of her identity. Esperanza's family has just moved into a - MOBY: Beep! Beep! RITA: Uh, yeah, a house on Mango Street - the first her parents actually own. But it's tiny, with barely enough room for her six family members. It's a bit run-down, and not at all what Esperanza was expecting. An animation shows Esperanza's family arriving at their new home. It is a small brownstone. The family jumps excitedly from the car, except for Esperanza, who sits in the back seat looking sad. MOBY: Beep. RITA: In the book, houses are an important symbol, when something represents a bigger idea. More than a roof and four walls, houses stand for your identity and your place in the world. An animation shows Esperanza walking slowly toward her new home. RITA: And for most of "Mango Street," Esperanza dreams of getting away from her home. An animation shows Esperanza and her siblings in their front yard. Her siblings are playing while she stands still, looking upset. RITA: She calls it "the house I belong but do not belong to." MOBY: Beep. RITA: Well, I think it means that even though she lives there, she doesn't feel at home. A lot of the lines are a little tricky like that. "Mango Street" is more like a book of poems than a typical novel. Rita flips through the pages of the novel as she continues. RITA: It's a series of vignettes, brief descriptions of powerful moments. Like poetry, the language is packed with multiple meanings. It's narrated by Esperanza in the first-person voice. An animation shows pages flipping, and Esperanza seated at the kitchen table, writing in a notebook. RITA: Each vignette draws on details from her daily life, almost like entries in a diary. In one way or another, all of them focus on questions of her identity. MOBY: Beep. RITA: OK, here we go. Rita points to text in the novel as she reads it aloud. An image of a sad Esperanza appears next to the words. RITA: My Name. In English, my name means hope. In Spanish, it means too many letters. It means sadness. It means waiting. It is like the number nine. MOBY: Beep. RITA: "Esperanza" is actually the Spanish word for "hope," but she sees her name differently. She links it to similar-sounding words, one meaning despair, the other, waiting. The word Esperanza appears, along with the Spanish words for despair and waiting. RITA: Instead of inspiring hope, her name reminds her of just the opposite. MOBY: Beep. The text Rita has read reappears on the screen, along with an image of Esperanza. The words, too many letters, are highlighted. RITA: "Too many letters," is kind of a joke. Esperanza's insecure about her long, uncommon name. She's scared people might find it weird or hard to pronounce. An animation shows the letters of Esperanza's name wrapping around her like a rope, pinning her arms to her body. She is frightened as imaginary devilish faces surround her, grinning. RITA: Decoding her name reflects larger questions about what defines her. Is it where she lives? Her family's background? Being a girl? An animation shows Esperanza staring at her reflection in the mirror. MOBY: Beep. RITA: In the end, Esperanza decides that it's up to her to define herself. She calls it a baptism, the Catholic naming ceremony for babies, and settles on the mysterious-sounding "Zeze the X." An animation shows Esperanza writing at her kitchen table. Text above her reads: I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Martiza or Zeze the X. Something like Zeze the X will do. MOBY: Beep. Esperanza holds up a T-shirt she has decorated with a drawing of a black mask and text that reads: Zeze the X. RITA: Well, the X is sort of everything and nothing. Like a variable in a math equation, you have to figure it out. An animated X appears and then turns into a question mark. RITA: It's still a mystery, even to Esperanza. Or, as she puts it later in the book, "Everything is holding its breath inside me. Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas." The text from the book appears as Rita recites it. RITA: She's bursting with excitement about adulthood, but she defines it with the ultimate childhood image: presents on Christmas morning. An animation shows Esperanza sitting on the living room floor next to a small Christmas tree, with an unwrapped present in front of her. MOBY: Beep. RITA: In many ways, the book is all about growing up. That's why "Mango Street" is called a coming-of-age novel. Over the year in which it takes place, Esperanza is caught between childhood and maturity. In one vignette, she catches sight of her more adult body while playing jump rope with her friends. In another, they all try on high-heel shoes… but are scared by some of the attention it gets them. Animations show Esperanza looking at herself in the mirror, jumping rope, and wearing high-heel shoes with her friends as a man's shadow appears in front of them. MOBY: Beep. RITA: For Esperanza's friends, growing up and getting married looks like a chance at total freedom. But she begins to see things differently. On Mango Street, the houses belong to men. And women belong to the houses, where they're limited to two roles – mother and wife. They spend their lives leaning out windows, watching the world go by. An animation shows Esperanza stepping out of her high-heels and walking down the sidewalk of her block. Women stare out the windows of each house as she passes by. One woman holds a baby. RITA: Esperanza dreams of a home outside of this place where men are in charge. She describes it as, "Not a man's house, not a daddy's, a house all my own, a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem." An image shows a sunset at the end of a city street. Esperanza's words appear as Rita recites them. MOBY: Beep. RITA: Writing is her means of constructing her dream house. That's why she compares it to a blank piece of paper. Snow suggests the whiteness of paper, too. Its emptiness gives Esperanza total freedom to create her own space. An animation shows a spacious house appearing on a blank, white sheet of paper. RITA: In other words, to create her own self. MOBY: Beep. RITA: Yeah, you could say that this book is her imaginary home; made real. Oh, look. Here comes my housewarming gift! Rita points past Moby. A bicycle horn is heard. CHIMPANZEE: Plaper! A rolled-up newspaper flies past Moby's face in slow motion. It lands on his toy house and breaks it. RITA: Huh. Guess I should have gotten you a digital subscription. Moby facepalms. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts